Secrets
by Anna Roma
Summary: She stopped as she felt the strap of her very voluminous nightgown – the red, satin one he always loved – fall near her elbow. His breathing fluctuated when he stared at the swell of her breast. “I miss you, Heero...”


_How much will be severed when a secret Heero had been keeping for years bleeds into his relationship with Relena? 1xR. _

Genre: Drama/Angst/Romance

Rated: M

Pairing: 1xR Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz

* * *

**Secrets**

******Anna Roma**

******Prologue**

******

* * *

**

He woke up in the middle of the night, some familiar service accompanying the stirring of his nerves and blunt recognition in the half light from whatever was emitting illumination outside the window. His legs dangled from the edge of the bed; they felt unattached to the rest of his anatomy. A bad symptom he concluded once he couldn't feel the pull of his muscles and the tautness of his skin the moment he stood up and almost painfully encountered the edge of the desk.

He approached the bathroom and flipped on the switch, instantly regretting his decision. He winced under the florescence but trudged still, drunk in movement and observation. With lack of restraint, he yanked the cabinet located above his sink and paused for a moment to remember exactly where the hell he was and what the fuck was he trying to do.

The soreness his eyes were struggling with did not seem to want to relinquish so in response, he pounded his closed fists on the marble sink and abruptly dropped his head low and opened his eyes as wide as they could go and kept it that way until sweat beaded and sashayed down his neck. Everything was so damn painful.

Choking on his throbbing, he grabbed what he came for and shut the cabinet from which he took things from so forcefully the corner cracked on impact. Just as he was about to leave, he stopped when he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror - covered with perspiration, red-rimmed eyes, the trademark sneer and traces of his Grecian features that worked effectively before, during and after the women came, straddled his lap, got their share and went away like they were someone who would last in his memory. Fucking sluts. Who were they trying to impress?

He stared at the face envied and for the thousandth time in his life, he hated himself. Self-loathing. The government-sanctioned physicians, in all their years of professional experience, they couldn't pinpoint where his abhorrence originated from. The tests and the pills weren't prescribed in guaranteed confidence. Yet he took them anyway, gave in at everything they could possibly think of for reasons he couldn't understand either.

He cursed his image and fell to the floor, his things scattered around him. He reached for the plastic, amber vial and twisted the cap off.

The despondency of it all. His desperation. He refused to believe that his life would continue like this – all pills and no progress. Wasn't he getting better? He had no idea.

He poured all the contents of the bottle in his hand. Morphine Sulfate, tablet form. For chronic illnesses. Lowe, Aiden. He stared at all the pills, as a collective multitude then separated each and every one individually. He rolled them between his fingers, pressed them against his palm with his thumb. Back then, after watching movies with conflict, he was so convinced that drugs and the state of overdose were in the category of 'instant relief'. The addicts were fabulous, fearless with a joint in their hands and they became sheer poetry in their ambiguity. But he was never in the same league with them. She would hate him if he dared.

She would hate him.

That sentence, in its simplest form, penetrated right through his chest and sank down deep in the recesses of his body. He imagined the pain and it hurt just like most of the things he encountered. It was so intense, the anguish, that he feared it might become a part of him, that losing her to time, death or incident would be his downfall. And he hated seeing her cry. Her tears didn't come often and when they did they tore his heart apart. That was one of the reasons why he chose not to disclose this particular secret to her. It would distract her and he was sure that she would pity him in his sorry state.

She would hate him.

If she ever found out. If she discovered that there was nothing she could do to stop it. They didn't call it chronic and degenerative just for the fuck of it.

He dreamt so many times of his death. Rather, the lives of the people he affected after the burial. His friends would be friends, promising not to forget and to visit occasionally when they weren't communally tortured. His colleagues would be devastated, he hoped in all sincerity, at his passing but they would remember him too. The other people he couldn't recall. But she remained the sole subject in his dreams, out of all the others and he had no objections regarding how and why.

Recurrently, she would hold his hand in her warm one, the smell of expensive lotion remaining and would kiss just below his jaw. "_I promise,_" she would start and like a familiar reflex, he'd smile at her. "_In the name of your grandkids, whether they're mine or not,_" He laughed every time and she would tell him her promises and he would memorize them all, holding her to them.

Those were good times and he tried to a great extent tried to separate them from instances like this.

Slowly, he placed the pills back in the vial leaving three and swallowing them dry. The blank expression on his face did not diminish. He liked it better when he injected the stuff like before. At least the euphoria was quick and it didn't leave him hanging.

He swiped his hand across his face; the images he was concentrating on were starting to mesh together in a mass of pivoting dimensions. He pushed himself off the tiled floor and sat on the edge of the bathtub, retrieving a cigarette.

He lit the cigarette, the smoke, the smell of tobacco and menthol soothing his olfactory senses and was causing him to sweat again, clashing with the heat from the lights above and the buzzing sound of silence. His lungs burned to life and he was starting to prepare himself for the diffusion of uncertainty and lack of control over all aspects of his being. This was going to be a long night. He couldn't possibly think of anything else. He would focus on one object and it would shake and reshape itself. He hung his head low between his knees and absently watched the thin trail of smoke permeate the air.

However, his senses paused when he glanced at a book beside the sink, standing upright and the back cover visible. The text was too long and he could only read the bottom-left corner.

FICTION

UK ₤6.99

"Fuck…Fuck-tion…6.99 fuck…" The words rolled off his tongue and past his lips like smooth vodka while the images of him and her barraged in his mind, a stampede of mischievous things.

When his erection wouldn't go away he opened the window in his room and let the air in. He exhaled and inhaled unhurriedly. Out goes the pain and in comes the fake, temporary relief.

_Flashback_

"_Down came the rain and washed the spider out."_

"_Hn." He said, shifting his head on her lap as she stroked his bangs, his cheeks and his lips with her fragrant fingers._

"_Out came the sun and dried up all the rain. Now the itsy-bitsy spider went up the spout again."_

_The wind blew and it carried her scent to him. He was at once subdued. From the moment they met, he suspected she smelled wonderful. Like lilies and rosewater and everything._

"_You see, the rain was an obstacle for the spider, something completely inexorable. He fell." She looked at him and he swore he could feel the deep affection she had washing over him. "But the sun always comes after the rain, sometimes with a rainbow. And that's what we have to look forward to."_

_End flashback_

A beep resonated in the background, in his room. The answering machine.

"Heero, it's me."

He quickly marched over to the vid-comm, punched a button with his thumb and the screen flicked to life, framing her oddly lethargic face. She was still so beautiful.

"Relena…" He didn't mean to sound so desperate.

She smiled the smile she only showed him and he instantly knew he'd be sleeping again tonight. "So…" She started, a slight blush developing all over her porcelain skin. "Let me begin with telling you how much I've missed you today."

Damn. Who needed medication when he already had this?

"How much?" He replied, liking where their conversation was headed. He pulled up a chair and sat down, hoping strongly she wouldn't notice the fatigue entrenched on his face and the way his shoulders lagged.

"Well…" She stopped as she felt the strap of her very voluminous nightgown – the red, satin one he always loved – fall near her elbow. His breathing fluctuated when he stared at the swell of her breast and the fact that she made no move in adjusting what had been undone on her. Her sky-blue eyes glistened with amusement. "I guess I'll start with this moment right now." Beguilingly, she brushed off the other thin strap with her fingers off her right shoulder and she didn't catch the way his pupils dilated and the gears in his mind started working coherently again. "I miss you, Heero..." God, the way his name rolled of her tongue. He was looking at her like she was Christmas and he felt his blood gush and explode toward the one place with which she was, is and will always be the sole person who was allowed to experience it.

He exhaled slowly and focused all of attention to the beauty on the screen. This was going to be an interesting night.

* * *

To Be Continued…_Chapter 1: Good Morning, Sunshine_ coming soon. Please read and review; it would help me so much - your comments and suggestions. This is just the prologue so the following chapters will be more detailed - longer paragraphs, more descriptive scenes, etc. 


End file.
